


The Butcher's Boy

by mittamoo



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Comfort, Dismemberment, If we werent clear on that one, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 17:53:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14526036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mittamoo/pseuds/mittamoo
Summary: He'd done it plenty of times in his life, as a child, on the run with his mom. He'd hoped that the others would never had to witness the darker parts of himself.





	The Butcher's Boy

**Author's Note:**

> so as my friend said it was time to put myself on the angst watchlist..... and also probably a government one as well!

They’d won. They’d won 10-9 Fox’s favour. Kevin had saved them in the last two minutes of the game. The Raven’s had lost. It was over. Neil can still hear the crack of Riko’s bones and the sound of agonised screams ringing in his ears as they’re led into an elevator. Neil doesn’t know why all of the foxes are being summoned to the east tower. He’s not like Renee, he doesn’t find comfort in prayer but he imagines if he did that he’d be praying for his team now.

East Tower is filled by bodyguards that move to stand behind the Foxes, then on a couch on the other side of the room sat Riko with his arm encased in a sling with his uncle beside him. In the centre of it all stood Ichirou on top of plastic sheeting. A short exchange of words and a brush of fingers across Riko’s cheek before a gun is placed against his temple and the trigger pulled. Blood spattering across the couch. Neil keeps his eyes forward, does his best to ignore the gasps of horror beside him. He can’t think about anything other than ensuring survival for him and his family right now.

“Your people are safe, as are mine, yes I am satisfied” He just about feels himself responding over the rush of blood in his ears. It’s so loud that it almost drowns out every thought in his head. So loud that it almost drowns out Ichirou’s next command.

“Now you will clear up your mess Nathaniel” Neil almost doesn’t understand what he means until a sharp meat cleaver is held out before him.

There is nothing he can do but swallow down the bile in his throat. This isn’t the first time he’s had to dismember a corpse, but never before has he done it before anyone but his mom’s watchful eye. He can’t be Neil for this, he can’t do this as Neil not with his family watching at his back. Andrew would understand, Renee too but the others will not understand and Neil can’t face their disgust. SO he drops Neil like an old coat. Abram steps forward and feels the weight of his father’s blade in his hands.  

It doesn’t take long for it to click why the plastic sheeting had been laid out along the ground. So with little fanfare Abram hauls Riko’s corpse from where it had slumped to his uncle’s side. All he can think as he arranges the body onto the plastic is that he was glad he hadn’t had to pull the trigger too. Muscle memory of taking apart corpses on the run to cover their trail makes his movements mechanical and methodical as he lets his mind drift away from what he’s doing. He pretends in his head that he’s a little boy again, dismembering animal corpses in the basement. If he focuses on one swing at a time he doesn’t need to think about the fact that the flesh and bone he will cleave is human.

When the corpse is stripped down to nothing, Abram surveys his work so far, testing the weight of the cleaver in his hands. He decides to start from the bottom and work his way up. Abram will do his job and he will do it well, he can’t help a corpse. He takes the left foot into his hands and swings severing the foot at the ankle. HE focuses on the crunch of bone and the slick feeling of clotting blood coating his fingers. He focuses on them to push away the scared and horrified whimpering behind him. Abram has a job to do, he can’t afford to be weak like Neil.

Abram pushes on, the other foot, a cut below the knees, at the top of the thighs. The repetitive crack and thud almost soothing as he loses himself in the task at hand. It gets easier once it starts looking less like a human corpse and becomes a mess of severed parts. A cut at the wrists, the elbows the shoulders. It takes more than on swing to hack properly through the neck. Quartering the torso is more of a process and by now he can feel the dull throb in his shoulder. Abram can’t be weak, weakness will cost his life. The job will be done.

After the final swing is done he lets the cleaver fall from his hand. His job is not done yet though. So he pushes himself to find feet and surveys the room again careful to avoid the gaze of the people at his back. He can’t face them yet. Instead he turns to the side of him where a smaller knife and a pair of plyers lie. It seems that Abram is expected to be more thorough in his work than he first thought. He pulls them from the table and resumes his work, this isn’t the first time he’s had to make a corpse near unidentifiable. He starts by prying open the mouth, pulling teeth and severing the tongue, so dental records can’t be used for identification. Then he takes a blade to the face, removing eyes, scalp and cutting away at anything distinctive. His attention slips back to the hands.

“I need a lighter,” He says quietly, his voice does not sound like his own.

A flash of white hair in the corner of his and a hand holding a lighter appears before him. The hand is steady and sure, Abram allows his gaze to follow the hand up to the person’s face. Renee stands beside him, uncaring of the threat of bodyguards. He eyes are dark but as his eyes meet hers she offers him a tight smile. This is a world the two of them are far too familiar with. He takes the lighter from her and sets to work holding the flame to each fingertip. He tries desperately to ignore the smell of burning flesh that pulls his mind to his mother’s own pyre. Beneath the crying and distressed sounds of his teammates he can hear the sound of tearing Velcro, of skin dried to leather.

“That is enough, Nathaniel you have done your part” commands from behind him

“Thank you my lord” He pushes himself to his feet again and desperately tries to ignore the feeling of dried blood against his skin.

Abram knows that he must pick up Neil from where he’d been discarded and face the music with their team. He isn’t ready to slip back into the identity of Neil yet. He can’t stand to face the disgust they will throw at him for this. He wants nothing more than to run but Neil promised to stay, so Abram turns around and faces his team.

Most of them look pale and ill, with the exception of Andrew and Renee. Andrew is blank but Renee faces him with understanding in her eyes. He’s sorry that he had to put them all through this. He can’t help but notice the gleam of fear in the eyes of the others. Fear of him he bitterly notes. It’s been a while since he saw that flash of fear in someone’s face, he didn’t miss it. The flash of fear in a person’s eyes is one memory from his time on the run that’d he’d never hoped to have to repeat. He takes a step towards them and lets himself pretend that the flinches he saw were a trick of the light. He imagines he must look like a horror film killer with dried blood coating his hands and blood spatter on his face and clumped in his hair.

All of them are rounded back into the elevator by the bodyguards. It isn’t until the doors slide shut behind them that Abram realises that he’s shaking all over. He hadn’t noticed how unsteady he was on his feet until his knees buckled under his weight either. The pain of hitting the floor never comes because and arm reaches out around his waist and steadies him against their side. Abram can’t think of who could be holding him up, he can’t think at all. All he can hear is the dull roaring in his ears and he can feel press of skin that’s too tight for his chest. He can’t think. Can’t think. _Can’t breathe._

“Abram” The voice cuts through the fog, and his eyes snap to meet hazel ones. He doesn’t remember the hands leaving his waist or being pushed against the wall for support. He suspects that this isn’t the first time Andrew had spoken. “Come back”

Everything snaps back into sharp awareness and he drags his eyes from Andrew to the rest of the foxes’ pallid faces stood a small distance away. He doesn’t remember leaving the lift, or how they’d gotten into the locker room. Matt is the first to break the stillness, stepping towards them. He looks no less ill than before but there’s a determined set to his jaw. Matt falters as Andrew swings around to face him, a warning noise deep in his chest. A threat. _You will stay away from us._ Matt does not advance again, but instead shrugs off his jacket and holds in in silent offering.

A far too large Jacket is draped over his shoulders to cover him. It smells like Matt. Matt had given him his jacket Abram’s foggy thoughts finally connect. Perhaps this means that he hasn’t lost his family. Hope is a dangerous thing Abram knows but like the fool his mother had always known him to be, he dares to hope anyway.

Trust that he’s able to walk on his own has obviously been given although Andrew’s hand never leaves the small of his back. Guiding him towards the coach. Once he’s seated a quiet ‘yes or no’ is asked and when Abram manages a jerky nod of his head, he feels something wet swipe across his face. Andrew is cleaning the dried blood off of him with a wet wipe presumably taken from Abby who hovers as near as she can. When he finishes with Abram’s face, he takes a hold of his hands and scrubs away the blood there too from his palms and even from between his fingers. It makes him feel almost human again. Makes him feel like he can be Neil again.

Neil inhales deeply as he looks over his family again, to find them staring back, not with disgust but with concern. He owes them some kind of explanation, he knows he does. He just isn’t sure where to start. Eventually he settles on just starting from the beginning.

“My father put a knife in my hands before I could read” breaking the silence, voice hoarse “It was dead animal carcasses I cut up first, then I killed live ones, dogs, pigs, horses. Whatever was on hand to teach me how to cut someone apart. We went on the run before he moved me on to human corpses. My mom taught me how to dispose of those.”

Everyone’s gaze is intent on him. He realises that Andrew had never let go of his hand when he feels the hard squeeze of his fingers. He continues.

“When she’d kill one of my father’s people when they came for us, it was my job to dispose of the bodies while she scoped out for more threats. Sometimes I’d do it properly like that but other times we hadn’t enough time, just enough to make it look like an accident and dump the body. I’d hurt for days for being so reckless but it was much better than being caught-” He had to tear his gaze away from them for this part “or it was the other way around, I was a good shot, my mom made sure of it”

He feels raw and exposed, having aired a dirty part of himself that he’d hoped the others would never have to see. Neil feels the exhaustion pressing down on him, making his limbs feel like lead but his head feel far too light. He’s untethered, unbalanced, and trapped all at the same time. It’s dizzying.  Andrew’s grip tightens on his neck, he doesn’t need to look to know exactly what Andrew would think of his mother’s teaching methods.

“Neil- that’s- I’m sorry” Matt stumbles over his words, hands twitching like he wants to reach out, but knowing better.

“Thank you for trusting us Neil” Renee cuts it to rescue Matt from his floundering, her voice deceptively serene against the dark glint of her eye.

The grip on his neck releases and the weight shifts to drape across his shoulders protectively. Neil is too tired to really think about anything beyond getting through the next moment. To do anything else but shield himself from the gaze of others and pray they don’t focus of the bloodied hole that he’d just torn itself, threatening to tear open into a flow of blood he won’t be able to staunch until every dirty detail spills from his lips. His team don’t need to hear that.  

Seeming to have picked up on this, Andrews arm slides to curl around his shoulder protectively, almost forming a barrier between himself and the others. Neil soaks in the warmth at his side as he’s pulled in to lean his weight against Andrew once again. While he sits there head resting on Andrew’s shoulder, he realised that this hadn’t cost him his family. They would recover from this, rebuild. For the first time in his life he thinks that everything will be okay. He has Andrew, and he has his family. He isn’t going to lose them over this.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading feedback is always welcome!


End file.
